


What Lies Closed

by Immanuel



Category: Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Bad Decisions, Dark Eldar, Drukhari, Gen, Rogue Trader - Freeform, Torture, what not to do with mysterious alien relics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 15:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11420565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Immanuel/pseuds/Immanuel
Summary: (co-authored by Kyle, creator of Kallen Veritasse)The child of a Rogue Trader is fascinated by things they've been told not to touch. When they open a xenos artefact, they are faced with a simple question - can you be friends with an alien?





	What Lies Closed

THEY ARE A curious child, little Kallen, with an insatiable urge to explore nooks and crannies. It is not difficult to assume a child like that, when told not to enter a room, will enter the room willingly. Will investigate thoroughly. Will touch what is forbidden.  
  In a room full of vases and devices and armaments, it is the biggest object that will attract attention. The coffin is large and ornate, marked with the lines and curves of alien runes, locked behind many a chain. It is fascinating. It needs so many keys, but nimble fingers had taken them earlier, swiftly and easily. No one pays attention to a child, after all.  
  Keys turn in locks and chains unfasten, clasps are undone and what is inside is revealed. A suit of armour, close-fitting plates the colour of bone scorched along their jagged edges. A tabard of purest white hangs from the waist, the barbed glyphs utterly unlike the clean lines of the coffin, but just as alien. Seized of a sudden impulse, Kallen grasps the ebon horns that curl from a helm as white as the tabard and pulls. They gasp.  
  A corpse, perhaps, yet with a haunting almost-beauty despite sunken cheeks and alabaster skin so close to the bone. Nearly alive. Like a storytale prince forever asleep. Kallen is enchanted, and wonders if it is polite to wake it. They lean closer, remembering the tales, and notice the cracked red gem on the breastplate has begun to pulse with a soft inner light. Or maybe it simply went unnoticed before. Holding the helm in one hand - it is far lighter than it appears - the other reaches out.  
  Incomprehensible pain grips Kallen. The chamber is replaced by a vista of torment, the soul-deep agony of a fallen warrior whose only reward was an eternity enslaved by darkness.  
  Kallen regains their senses to the sound of a child’s scream. _Their_ scream. They have fallen to the floor, the horned helm still clutched in one hand. The alien is climbing out of its coffin.  
  “Y-You’re… you’re alive!”  
  It turns unnaturally large, jet-black eyes on the child, its gaze filled with hatred, and with rage, but most of all with hunger. Perhaps it is only because it is moving, but Kallen thinks it looks a little more alive, a little less shrivelled. In a rasp that betrays centuries of desiccation, it spits a string of razor-edged syllables. “ _Khaela Mensha Khaine, what new necrontyr devilry is at work here? A child? A mon-keigh child?_ ”  
  A frantic shake of the head. “I… I don’t understand. My name is K-Kallen. Kallen Veritasse.” The child pushes themselves to their feet, the helm forgotten on the deck. Manners assert themselves instinctively, in spite of fear. “Umm, what’s your name?”  
  “ _Ahhhh, the inelegance of your tongue is a new ordeal with each crude syllable._ ” Fingers drum upon the surface of the coffin as its inhabitant thinks carefully on the response. This time, it speaks in strangely accented High Gothic, its expression like that of one who has been made to swallow something foul. “My true name you never could pronounce, but within the limits of your mon-keigh tongue, a near approximation is _Khikhanyar_.”  
  “Khi...khan...yar.” The child is tasting the syllables, foreign and strange. Elegant, but sharp, as if they could cut the inside of the mouth if not spoken with care. They smile shyly. “It’s nice to meetcha, Khikhanyar. But… why were you inside?”  
  “There was a battle. We were ambushed by the necrontyr - our ancient enemy. Many were killed. Then I awoke in there.” Khikhanyar points to the underside of the coffin’s lid, marred by the shallow scratches of a desperate prisoner buried alive. “That must have been… several centuries ago, I deem.”  
  Kallen wonders if the pain in the gem is Khikhanyar’s. The alien was imprisoned in the dark for so long, and is surely a warrior. It doesn’t feel quite right, somehow.  
  Khikhanyar is walking around now, steps still faltering with weakness. It opens boxes, rifling through their contents with little interest before moving on. Looking for something. Before Kallen can ask what, it asks a question of its own. “Where am I?”  
  “The secret room on dad’s ship,” the child replies, reasoning that a secret cannot be kept from someone already _inside_ it.  
  “Dad is the archon of this vessel?”  
  “Umm, maybe. Is an archon like a captain? Dad’s the captain.”  
  “And what are you? Dad’s servant?”  
  Kallen puffs out their chest. “I’m his _heir_!” the child huffs indignantly. “And _you_ should call him Lord Veritasse.”  
  Khikhanyar drops an exotic pulse rifle back into a case of others of its kind, turning to face the child again. The alien tilts its head, critical eyes roving from groxhide jacket and silk shirt to sturdy ship’s boots. Unremarkable, but high quality. The only sign of ostentation is a sigil stamped on the golden buckle of the belt. “The archon’s child? _That could be useful._ ”  
  Kallen frowns as the alien slips back into its own tongue. “Yes, and one day this ship will be mine.”  
  “You know this vessel well, then? All its secret places. The crew, also.” Behind inhuman eyes, an equally inhuman intellect is at work. The pieces of a plan are falling together to form a beautiful, horrifying whole.  
  The child nods. “Do you need help? Have you lost something?”  
  “ _More than you could ever know._ ” How does one describe the experience of being trapped, unmoving, for eternity? Of knowing that your very soul is ebbing away day by day, of being forced to yield your immortality to the infinite and terrible thirst of the Youngest Goddess? Even the memory of being inside that hateful casket would have been enough to send shivers up the alien’s spine had it not steeled itself against such displays of emotion long ago. Still, it was weak, and weakness was a loathsome state. There was the child, of course, but such a tiny thing would restore almost nothing and leave the warrior alone on the vessel without guide or bargaining chip. It needed to find other sustenance. The child seemed young, as best as alien eyes could judge such a thing, and they had already proven themselves foolish, so perhaps… “Cemon-keigh, ceotora… let us play a game, you and I.”  
  “What kind of game?”  
  What kind of games does a mon-keigh child play? Nothing like those played by the trueborn on the streets of Commorragh, it wagers. “It is… a finding of things game. It is a game where you gather someone you do not like, and something pointed and wicked and sharp and bring them here.” It pauses, contemplating whether it would be best to have the child keep watch or not. “Then close your eyes and ears, counting upwards to a thousand, and then the game is done. If you have found these things and done as I have said, then you have won.”  
  “And then we play another one?”  
  “Oh yes, ceotora.” There is a marked sneer and snigger in its voice, as if it knows something the child does not. “There shall be many a game to play.”  
  “Alright, but what do I get if I win the game?” A pause, and as the alien takes time to think Kallen looks at it further. It looks weak, and sad, and almost… lonely. “W-What if… what if, if I win and I find the stuff and someone and I bring them here, we become friends?”  
  Khikhanyar looks at the child, puzzled, going over the words it knows in High Gothic. It is familiar with blood, death, ambush, but not… friend. “What is ‘friends’?”  
  “Friends are… umm… companions! They help each other, and give nice things, and protect each other, because they’re friends. Oh, and they never, never hurt each other, and if they do they have to say sorry and not do it again.” The simple, resolute logic of a child.  
  “Hrmmm…” It will be useful to have the trust of so small an infiltrator. “Very well, ceotora. Should you have the needed things to win then we shall be, as you say, ‘friends’.”

It is easy for Kallen to slip around, to find things. After all, _The Odyssey_ is their second home, the first, of course, being _The Morrigan_. Their ship. But for now, they are sailing on dad’s ship and learning the ins and outs, the little pathways and secrets that only a few care to know. Part of Kallen thinks about telling dad about the alien in the coffin, but another reminds themselves that dad is a very busy man.  
  First, a hated person… that was easy. The armsman - the big, evil one. He didn’t have a lot of friends, and he was always rude and made lots of the girls cry. Dad must have kept him on board because he didn’t know what the man was up to, obviously, but Kallen had seen so many of the ship’s girls coming out of his quarters looking sad, and sometimes he made jokes about Kallen that they didn’t understand, but knew had to be bad. Kallen had said they would protect the girls, once, and they patted the child’s head and said no one could save them.  
  The man would probably die. Kallen is not stupid. Whatever Khikhanyar is, it is a warrior, and if it wants a pointy thing, it’s going to do something nasty. Yet, somehow, it was alright. He was a bad man, and bad people deserved to be punished. Besides, the alien in the coffin hadn’t tried to eat Kallen, so it was probably fine. Right?  
  Kallen stands before the door to his cabin and knocks once… twice… three times. Out comes the armsman, half-dressed with a reek of cheap amasec potent enough to make Kallen’s eyes water. But they stand their ground. Do it for the girls, for dad, for a new friend.  
  “Mr. Halforax… sir.” The sir through gritted teeth, reluctant but necessary. “P-Pauline says she wants to see you, near Bay C. Said to go there in twenty minutes, nicely dressed.” Pauline was one of the prettier ones on crew, and one of the few the armsman hadn’t terrorised into going to his quarters.  
  There is a terrifically loud belch, and the lumbering tones of the older man are accusatory as he glares downwards at the quivering child. “Pauline, yeah? Pretty one, never gives me the time of day, and she wants to see me? Tch, likely story.”  
  “How could I lie to you? You’re bigger and scarier than me, and if I lied you’d smack me.”  
  The big man narrows his eyes as he studies Kallen’s, attempting to pinpoint where the lie is, but can’t quite make it out. Perhaps it’s the alcohol, or the wide-eyed innocence… or perhaps there is something else at work. Whatever the case may be, the scrutiny ends, and he nods. “Mhmmm… right… I’ll meet her there.”  
  He wags a warning finger in their face, but thinks better of outright threatening them. There is a leer on his face, and Kallen gets away as quickly as possible. The sooner he’s gone, the better.  
  Something pointed and sharp is easier still. After all, the galley is large and there are far too many people to notice one more body, one less blade. For once Kallen appreciates the simplicity of what they wear, the kindness that is accorded by dressing just like other people. The knife is quickly snatched and hurried away before anyone bothers to do a count of how many implements they have or need.  
  Returning now to the chamber to see so many boxes have been opened, the contents spilled everywhere in a desperate search for… something. Kallen hands the knife over as quickly as they can, wanting not to touch the thing for even a second more.  
  “There you go, your pointy thing. He’ll be ’round in a little bit, and you can do… whatever.”  
  Khikhanyar doesn’t say a word, preoccupied with the tool - undeserving of being called a weapon - it has been given. Kallen winces, seeing it handle the blade with too much eagerness and anticipation for comfort.  
  Now all they must do is wait. It isn’t long before Khikhanyar’s pointed ears prick up.  
  “He comes,” the alien hisses. Its entire posture tenses like a coiled spring. Like a predator ready to strike.  
  Kallen strains their ears, but can’t hear anything. The alien must have very good hearing - after all, its ears are larger than a human’s. It takes another minute before Kallen hears heavy footsteps approaching. Dressed in what he must consider finery, Halforax’s grin falters at the sight not of a pretty young thing to terrorise, but a nightmarish fiend.  
  “What… What the fuck is-YOU LITTLE SHIT, IF THIS IS SOME KIND OF GAME I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU I SWEAR T-” he chokes on the words as a sudden, immense pressure is placed on his windpipe.  
  Khikhanyar has him by the throat, though Kallen did not even see it move. “Oh, but that is not how the game is played, mon-keigh.” The alien turns back to Kallen, grinning with infinite malevolence. The pain-gem is glowing a bright, angry red now. “Remember the terms, ceotora.”  
  Close your eyes, Kallen. Shut your ears. Count long, count loud, and it might save your life. Ignore the sounds, whatever they may be, and keep going ’til one thousand.  
  “One… two… three…”  
  The first cuts are made with metronomic regularity to the child’s count. The blade slices through tendons with surgical precision, punctuated with a cry of pain each time. The pain-gem, the tormentor, has the man drowning beneath waves of agony, but he is a big man, and Khikhanyar has no interest in giving him the opportunity to turn this into a fair fight.  
  “Fourteen… fifteen… sixteen…”  
  It is futile to attempt to ignore the sounds, of course. Kallen does their best anyway. At first it is simply terrifying, to hear a man reduced to shrieking like… the child has no idea what it is like.  
  “Thirty… thirty-one… thirty-two…”  
  The mon-keigh whimpers like a frightened infant between cuts. The knife drifts gently down his cheek, the blade merely caressing, not cutting. Building the anticipation before - the armsman gasps, an aborted scream strangled by a wet gurgle. He is beginning to drown in more than just pain, now, the blade protruding from his chest where it has punctured a lung. Each desperate breath is like swallowing shrapnel.  
  “Sixty-six… sixty-seven… sixty-eight…”  
  The smell is worse than the sound. The armsman quickly voids his bowels in terror when the extent of his predicament becomes apparent. Kallen fights down the urge to vomit as the copper, charnel house stink of blood forces itself into their nostrils no matter how they try to breathe through their mouth.  
  “Eighty-seven… eighty-eight… eighty-nine…”  
  Khikhanyar draws the knife softly, delicately up the mon-keigh’s abdomen. One slip, one severed artery, and he will be dead. The dead cannot feed its soul. The warriors of Khaine prefer to kill their enemies in a single blow, the perfect murder-strike their highest form of art, but survival supersedes all other concerns. Every last drop of pain must be wrung from this one, to provide the strength to hunt the next. With a satisfying, wet slap, the mon-keigh’s guts spill onto the deck.  
  “A hundred and twenty-seven… a hundred and twenty-eight… a hundred and twenty-nine…”  
  The screaming stops, eventually. Kallen does not stop counting, does not look. A man cannot scream forever, after all, no matter how great his suffering. Just focus on the counting, and everything will be alright. Won’t it?

“Nine-hundred and ninety-eight… nine-hundred and ninety-nine… a thousand.”  
  Kallen hesitates for a moment before they open their eyes. Where before there was uncertainty, now there can be no doubt. The alien no longer has the appearance of a husk. It is still haggard, still gaunt, but visibly younger. Somehow, it has stolen the life that is even now draining from the armsman it cradles like a sleeping child. The illusion of the storytale prince pulled aside to reveal a vampyre.  
  “W-What are you?”  
  Khikhanyar reaches into the man’s split abdomen, reaching up under the ribcage. Gently, the hand pushes past lungs struggling to draw breath as they continue to fill with blood, and finds the heart. It gazes deep into the cowering child’s eyes with an elongated grin, feeling the ecstasy of torment already restoring a measure of lost vitality. The hand grips the feebly beating heart, and the armsman quivers in Khikhanyar’s arms as he enters cardiac arrest.  
  “ _I am one of the eladrith ynneas of Commorragh, we whose race was ancient beyond reckoning before your ancestors began walking upright and whose empire spanned the galaxy for the lifetime of stars. I am an Incubus warrior in the aspect of our Dark Father, of the Shrine of Scorched Bone. I have passed through the fires of Khaela Mensha Khaine and claimed the soul stone of one of the False Phoenix’s Striking Scorpions as mine to torment. I have tasted the blood and tears of thousands of souls to spite She Who Thirsts. My klaive has ended the lives of the champions of more species than you will ever encounter. I am darkness made flesh, death incarnate, and I am the unmaker of all who would stand against me._ ”  
  There is a desperate mewling sound, and the alien takes the time to relish the child’s hot, bitter tears. Kallen can’t help it. They had known what would happen, but here is a dead man lying on the floor, dead in his own blood, it is pooling, dripping - there is so much everywhere - it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it-  
  “The best way to get over it is to breathe. The strong survive, the weak die.” A deep breath, and Kallen inhales and exhales along.  
  Kallen is still shaking when the alien begins its search anew, rifling through more boxes and crates and muttering what are probably obscenities under its breath. It takes a little time for the child to try and keep the now cooling body at the edge of their vision and ask, “Whatsit that you’re even looking for?”  
  Interrupted in its search, it replies aggressively. “ _My klaive._ It is... a blade. The finest of blades, the only true weapon. It must have been found with the casket. Where else on the vessel would it have been placed if not here?”  
  Part of Kallen wants to stay mum, but another, wiser part says that perhaps complying with the request of an alien that, friend or not, had so recently murdered an armsman in cold blood is the road to not dying. “Well... there’s the armourium, which has all the weapons, like the shotguns and the cutlasses, and then…” Khikhanyar tunes out the child’s babbling and wonders if it has missed a box before hearing, “-and it looks pretty neat on dad’s wall, but it kinda scared me because it was huge and jagged but he says that that’s what makes it such an impressive find.”  
  “What did you say?”  
  Kallen pouts, now sure that their new friend had not been paying any attention. “What I _said_ , if you had been listening, is that dad’s got a bunch of weapons on his wall because he likes collecting them. He found a couple of really cool ones on that space hulk and they’re in there now, but I’m not s’posed to be in there after the last time when I used his big choppa to cut meat in the galley. The newest one is this big black thing with spiky runes on it that looks really scary and, um, are you okay?” Their face pales at the gleam in the alien’s eye, a look which was becoming startlingly familiar and easy to read as trouble.  
  “It is mine.”  
  The child shakes their head. “It’s on dad’s wall, so it’s dad’s now.”  
  Its face twists in a snarl, and Kallen flinches despite their best efforts. “It is a trinket to him, he cannot wield it.” A thought occurs to it, and it regains a measure of composure. “Perhaps, then, a bargain might be struck?”  
  “Umm… I dunno.”  
  “It will be yours one day anyway, ceotora.”  
  “Yeah, I guess.” Kallen rubs their chin thoughtfully. Dad was always encouraging them to learn how to bargain. “Let’s see whatcha got, then.”  
  Khikhanyar smiles. It is a cruel and predatory thing, revealing teeth that, like the rest of the alien’s features, seem uncomfortably elongated. It reaches up to one of the bladed vanes protruding from its backplate, unhooking a thong from which hung a cracked gem of iridescent purple. It looks just like the tormentor mounted on the alien’s cuirass, except that it isn’t glowing, and Kallen recoils when it is held out to them.  
  “This one will not hurt you, ceotora. It is just a stone,” Khikhanyar lies. It holds a tortured soul just as the tormentor does, it simply hasn’t been rebuilt to project that pain outwards. “A very valuable stone. It once belonged to a great warrior, an Esik Caman of Kionash Kaelor.”  
  Hesitantly, Kallen reaches out and takes the gem. True to the alien’s word, there is no sensation beyond a slight chill. They turn it over in their hands, examining it, running a finger along the single crack that marred its otherwise perfectly smooth surface. They do not ask what happened to the previous owner.  
  “Is a bargain struck?” Khikhanyar asks.  
  It is more beautiful than any gem Kallen had ever seen. But dad had told them never to accept the first offer. Looking past the alien’s intense stare, they count three more hanging from the vanes, each a different colour.  
  “I want all of them. Except that one,” the child adds, pointing to the tormentor. “And, and you have to promise not to hurt dad with the big pointy thing.”  
  Khikhanyar’s eyes narrow, its lip curling with obvious distaste. The soul stones of Asuryani aspect warriors are valuable trophies, but ultimately ones that can be replaced if it has the klaive. As for the archon… it had already resolved to strike a bargain with him to escape the vessel - and the child has been careless with their choice of words.  
  “So be it,” Khikhanyar concedes, passing the remaining soul stones to the child one by one. Their face lights up in delight at the way the colours shift and shimmer.  
  Khikhanyar picks up its helm, leaving a bloody handprint on the grim mask that hides away its gaunt features, and moves to leave with long, loping strides. It does not wait, assuming the child will follow, and Kallen is left to wonder what it plans to do next. After all, it is still weakened, but if that was Khikhanyar at its weakest, and it wants a bigger pointy thing… As the gears in their little head begin to turn they gather up the courage to walk, slowly, and then to run. Quickly.

There are many weapons hanging on the wall of Kandor Veritasse’s private quarters - an array of human-crafted weapons ranging from the ceremonially elaborate to the austere, and a handful of xenotech relics including a conspicuously brutal choppa. There are even a number of obviously aeldari pieces, but there is only one true blade. One klaive. Khikhanyar approaches the wall, running a gauntlet along the runes inscribed on the flat of the great, black cleaver. A name. _Its_ name, for weapon and warrior are one.  
  “Just grab it!” Kallen hisses, eager to be gone before their father returns to find his child has snuck into his chambers - again - and brought an alien with them.  
  Pointed ears prick up, and the child swallows their dismay. In a single fluid motion the klaive is swept from its place on the wall and into a guard position, held diagonally across Khikhanyar’s torso as it turns to face the hatchway, ready to strike at the speed of thought.  
  Moments later it bursts open. Lord Veritasse, judging by the fine cloak of livid scarlet he wears, and a cluster of six - no, seven - armsmen in clumsy carapace armour. Dark of hair and firm of brow, Lord Veritasse appears in his prime, for what that is worth. He raises a pattern-welded blade crackling with disruptive energy to point at Khikhanyar’s heart, and though his gaze never leaves the alien it is obvious he has noticed the child. A vein in his temple throbs with barely controlled fury. Kallen looks away sheepishly.  
  “ _Lay down the klaive before injury befalls you, Incubus._ ”  
  Khikhanyar cocks its head, curious. Kandor speaks in the Commorrite dialect of Lam Eldannar, or at least as close an approximation as his ape’s maw can manage. It is an ugly, botched attempt robbed of both grace and venom.  
  “Lord Veritasse _, I presume?_ ” The alien exaggerates the subtleties of sounds the mon-keigh cannot mimic. If Kandor registers the mockery, he does not react. “ _You speak our tongue with all the grace of a face-eater squig._ ”  
  “ _Lay down the klaive,_ ” he repeats. His offhand rises, the threat obvious as the armsmen at his side brandish their shotguns. Crude weapons, but the scattershot will make it hard for even Khikhanyar to dodge their fire. Even then, there will be more outside.  
  Khikhanyar releases one hand from the klaive, deftly wielding it by only the secondary grip at the forte of the blade. It is an inefficient way to hold a klaive, which demands both hands to be committed to fulfil its vicious potential, but as long as an Incubus has a hand on its klaive, it remains a constant threat. It expects the humans will consider the threat lessened far more than is truly the case.  
  “ _It is mine, mon-keigh,_ ” the Incubus replies. Lord Veritasse is about to drop his arm when it surprises him by switching to High Gothic. “Show your father the stones, ceotora.”  
  The blade wavers. Ceotora - ‘little child’ - could only mean… Lord Veritasse turns to Kallen. They look up, face contorted with something between embarrassment and shame, but not quite reaching regret. The father sighs with resignation, and just a hint of relief, at the sight of the clutch of soul stones dangling from the child’s outstretched hand. Kallen hadn’t been kidnapped by the alien, at least. The pieces are beginning to fall into place.  
  “We’ll talk about this later,” he warns before returning his attention to what he supposes is now an unexpected - and unwelcome - guest. “ _Fine. Keep it. Then tell me why I shouldn’t put more holes in you than a shardnet._ ”  
  Khikhanyar almost laughs out loud at the feeble attempt to show knowledge of the eladrith ynneas. “ _I seem to have lost my way. I thought we might strike a bargain to return me to a neutral port where I can find passage back to Commorragh._ ”  
  “ _And what consideration would you offer me for this? I notice you are out of soul stones, and have already proved unwilling to part with the klaive._ ”  
  Even concealed behind its war-helm, the malicious grin was evident in its reply. “ _I would spare you the sight of watching me slowly carve your child into ever smaller pieces._ ”  
  Lord Veritasse snaps. Snarling, he steps forward with blade poised to strike. Khikhanyar steps swiftly to the side, attempting to put the child between them, and is surprised to find they assist in the endeavour, little feet running forward to join the fray.  
  “NO! Dad, dad wait!” Kallen stands directly in the path of the blade, in opposition their father, face flushed but stern. Demanding attention. Demanding silence. Demanding. “Khin… kih… Khikhanyar is my friend!”  
  Lord Veritasse’s stunned silence is broken by a growl of pain. His blade drops to the thickly carpeted deck with a dull thud as he looks down to see a simple galley knife protruding from his shoulder, slipped between cuirass and pauldron of the carapace worn under his coat. A coat that now shows a spreading stain of a slightly darker shade of red. The armsmen shuffle nervously, unsure what to do with their lord injured, but his child standing between them and his assailant.  
  A small, glowering face turns to a hardened warrior. “You promised not to hurt dad. You _promised_.”  
  “I promised not to use the klaive,” it hisses.  
  “Nuh-uh,” the child insists, unflinching in front of the warrior wielding a blade that could cleave their body in twain without effort. “We’re friends, and friends don’t hurt each other, or their friends, or their dads! Not ever!”  
  The Incubus considers the options. It is still greatly weakened from its centuries of torpor, and even if it could kill everyone on the ship it would still be stranded… wherever it is. It could follow through with its threats against the child, but the Incubi prefer not to break their word unless necessary. The child’s insistence on ‘friends’, though, that could be used to leverage the archon all the same. All this in a fraction of a second. What did the child say ‘friends’ do?  
  “Sorry,” it spits the unfamiliar word.  
  Lord Veritasse looks at it with undisguised shock. “What?”  
  “Sorry,” it spits again. “That is what ‘friends’ say if they hurt each other. And then they do not do it again.”  
  Kallen nods and turns back to their father, seeking approval in his eyes. The eyes of a worried father, torn between duty to his job and duty to his child.  
  “ _Friends._ ”  
  “ _What?_ ” It is Khikhanyar’s turn to be surprised.  
  “ _Friends, that’s what_ ‘friends’ _means,_ ” Lord Veritasse explains. The captain shakes his head in disbelief.  
  The alien snorts derisively. “ _That word has no currency in Commorragh._ ”  
  “ _Well, it has currency for you, now. If you want to live long enough to return to Commorragh._ ” There is still mistrust in those guarded words, but the captain chooses to show faith and acquiesce to the wishes of his child. He prays he will not live to regret it.

Kallen does not flinch as they receive their punishment, the long-winded and immense rant that their father has decided is his weapon of choice. What a foolish, stupid thing it was to tamper with a xeno artefact, enough that there is now blood on their hands and the need to replace a valuable member of crew. How dare such a young child disobey the direct orders of their father when such things were obviously meant to ensure safety and security on the ship. How unbearably stupid it was to place trust in something so obviously villainous, and had the child paid any attention to their lessons on the known xenos races they would have recognised the runes of the drukhari and known that protocol is to inform a superior officer. They are to be grounded alongside the Incubus with a friendly dynasty, to be stuck in plodding lessons for at least four years and unable to travel offworld for anything. After that, work as a mere crewman, with none of the luxuries or perks usually accorded to the children of Rogue Traders. No niceties, no treats, and the ever-present threat of corporal punishment, all with a reminder that this punishment could be so much worse. That if they were not the child of a Rogue Trader they could be accused of xenophilia and executed.  
  By the time the captain is done he is red in the face and the child is quaking in their boots, but there is not a single tear, nor any attempt to alleviate their punishment in the slightest. Lord Veritasse is mildly impressed that the child seems to understand the gravity of what they have done, and receives a low “Of course,” in reply. But it is no surprise to Kallen - they will have to live with the sight of death, remembering that still beating heart as the price of curiosity.  
  Still, the father hugs his child close, trembling himself as he holds them tight. “Kallen, Kallen you must be so careful… please. You could have died, starling. It could have killed you, and I wouldn’t have known ’til I saw the body. You were so, so lucky and brave today and I am so thankful to the Emperor and all our ancestors that you are still here. No more surprises, no more risks like this in my lifetime, alright? When you are older and wiser and stronger, then you can make your way. But for now, please, just take care of yourself.”  
  A slight nod, and Kallen hugs their father back tightly, a flood of emotions coming to the surface as they begin to cry.  
  “I love you so much, daddy, a-and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to be so b- bad and I-.”  
  “Shhh, shhh, it’s alright, daddy’s here. I love you too, starling. Now, go get some rest. It’s a long journey we have ahead.”

Lord Veritasse is able to reach an accord with Khikhanyar, eventually. The Incubus will serve as a bodyguard, champion, and executioner to the Rogue Trader for a hundred years. A mere blink in the life of the ageless drukhari, though only half Lord Veritasse’s original demand of two hundred to match the time he reckoned since the stasis field in the coffin had failed and allowed its prisoner to begin to die. Such life comes at a cost, of course, and that is a price Lord Veritasse will reluctantly have to pay in souls. For the first four years Khikhanyar will guard Kallen in their exile-in all-but-name, during which time the Incubus will be monitored as it slowly regains its dark vigour to see how many souls are needed to sustain it. Of all the terms, it is this one that rankles. The lives of slaves may sustain it, but they do not thrill it the way combat does. Lord Veritasse is adamant that it is an essential control measure, to know Khikhanyar’s limits. It costs him the other hundred years.  
  Once those first four years are over, though, then there will be the chance to kill, to truly kill, once more. Every soul claimed in the arena, on the executioner’s block, or in combat will be a boon on top of the slaves given to keep its soul from She Who Thirsts.  
  Kallen is waiting for it outside their father’s quarters. Accompanied by armsmen, of course. The drukhari smiles, though the attempt is more unsettling than friendly. What a stupid, foolish child. What arrogance of the mon-keigh, to think that they could bind an Incubus to their will. Once the bargain was complete, it would tear the lives of child and father apart piece by piece. Long would be their suffering. A fine treat indeed. But revenge was a vintage that matured with age. It had to be cultivated. Slowly, patiently.  
  “Your hands are so cold…” There is protestation, but the child will not allow it, and there are awkward stares as one callused, worn hand is clasped within two warm and childlike ones. On the drukhari’s face only confused discomfort, while the child seems almost victorious.  
  And Kallen is, because today they have a new friend.

**Author's Note:**

> Kallen and Khikhanyar are going to be characters in a Rogue Trader RPG campaign. You can already tell the quality of the decision-making the party is likely to be making.


End file.
